


Gratitude

by Ylevihs



Series: How Not to Fall [32]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Retribution Spoilers, Self Esteem Issues, platonic chargestep, referenced chentega, referenced flystep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-13 16:51:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21000992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ylevihs/pseuds/Ylevihs
Summary: Or something like it





	Gratitude

The beeping was steady and rhythmic. The tempo of a slow dance. Of a heartbeat. Rather the point, that.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Richard kept his voice low. Respectful. Didn’t want to think about the mood of the room but. Focused his mind in on making sure that they wouldn’t be disturbed.

Nothing to see here, nothing at all, move along to other more promising rooms.

More importantly nothing to _hear_ here. A convenient and secluded place to have a conversation neither of them wanted to have. It was the first time they’d. Since. Hm.

“No problem,” Ricardo muttered back, not looking up at him. Not looking up at her. He sounded five hundred miles away, not that Richard could blame him. There was more than a little temptation to slide out of the moment. Let his mind skitter somewhere else, babble for a little bit to pass the time and then walk out of the room like nothing had ever. It wouldn’t be right of him. And it was harder to be a coward with Ricardo there by his side.

Ricardo hadn’t asked why Richard didn’t ask Daniel to come with him and Richard didn’t volunteer it.

The short term ICU tended not to have private rooms, but once things turned. Well. And with consistent and sizeable donations from an anonymous benefactor. Mitzi’s private room practically sparkled. Stainless steel and clear plastic tubing and the stink of industrial grade disinfectant.

Richard had brought flowers. Ricardo had opened the blinds to let in the sunlight. And then they sat side by side in the silence of a dead woman’s room as medical wonders and Mad Dog’s ill-gotten gains kept her heart beating.

It took far too much concentration to keep his knees still. His hip still caught when he moved too quickly; the ache was an ever present thing but enough to be bitten back on. For the moment. Knees were still. Pressed tightly together. Fingers wrung and wrung and cracked. Echoed in the small room. No, that was in his head, but. But. Of course Ricardo would notice the fidgeting. Twitchy Richie, never could keep himself to himself. Hands to himself. Hands untwisted from around themselves and drug his nails over his jeans.

Why did it always circle back like this? Why did he always have to make things harder than they had to be?

“You were right,” he felt more than heard himself say it. Words crawling up his throat and breaking open his teeth. “When you. When you said that I was doing things,” hand up to his hair to drag through and the slight tug was something to cling to. They’d shaved his head almost immediately when they’d gotten him back. As hideous as he thought the mop was the feeling of the kinks catching under his nails was all his own. Ricardo still wasn’t looking at him, grimly watching the woman in the bed. Small blessings. “To push people away and hurt myself. It feels. It felt right. To do it. Piss you off and punish you for trusting me when I can’t even trust myself,”

A moment of silence and Richard couldn’t bring himself to look up at Ricardo’s face. “Are we really going to do this now?”

“As opposed to when?” The flare up of anger was brief and easy for both of them to stomp out.

“Fine. Does you admitting it mean you’re actually going to stop?” still speaking from another state. Another country. Lines of tension marking the road map. Marking his. May as well have been on another planet for as blank as he looked. Felt.

“Means I’m gonna try, at least,”

“You’re going to try,” tight and restrained and just so fucking tired. Couldn’t look at his face but could look over at the exhausted body beside him and. “Richard,” hate himself for adding to it.

Something dug into the walls of his skull and skittered, claws digging in to his jaw and twisting. Wrenching. Shut up and fold. Turn the attention to Mitzi. Turn it to the new dog or to Chen or to Daniel or get mad at him for thinking it. Richard cleared his throat, words uneven and out of step.

“There’s this feeling, okay? That I get all the time, and I only get it because I love,” stuck in his throat like a stubborn pill—sideways in the esophagus. Ricardo waited but the edge was still there, hovering like a razor pressing into the skin but not cutting. “I love you and Danny. That because I do, I want things to be better for you both. I want you to be happy and safe,” whatever that even meant for men like them.

Safe from the Farm and safe from him and the things he was doing to them. “And have the things you deserve, good things, and there’s still no situation I can imagine where any of those things have me involved and it’s. It’s like. If I can just manage to make them leave—to make them let me d,” ended the thought, couldn’t make his mouth say it because that was another conversation entirely. Drug his hand out of his hair to clutch at the empty air between his knees.

Shake invisible shoulders to just get it.

Understand. No, actually, wait. Don’t understand. Ricardo understanding would just make it worse and Richard couldn’t bring himself to consider that.

“They’ll see how much better off they are without me. _You’ll_ see how much better off you are without me. It’s. Selfish and it’s not fair to you or him or. So. Yes,” he took in a deep breath and it felt sterile in his lungs. Just on the other side of caustic. Forced the words into a slower rhythm to keep the panicked desperate edge off. Wasn’t crying. Not yet. “I’m going to try to stop. It’s hard. I still don’t even want me in my life and I don’t want you to know about it because it’s there. It’s the thought that you’ve got better things to worry about than me and I shouldn’t be adding to what you’ve already got to deal with. It’s. Daniel’s too,”

Richard reclined back and rubbed his hands hard enough over his face to sting and make white spots explode behind his eyelids. “He still has nightmares about me. About how I could have killed him. And he still won’t—you can’t tell me it’s healthy that I almost killed him and he still has nightmares about me killing him and he. Won’t. Leave,”

“So then why don’t you leave him?” hit like a physical—oh, no wait, that was Ricardo not exactly gently punching him in the shoulder. There was a back half to that sentence, the end of the question, lurking in the corners of the room. Ricardo didn’t put a voice to it.

“Like I kept trying to leave you after you showed yourself in that diner? Remind me, how did that work out? Me screening your calls, avoiding you, ignoring you?” there was a rising lick of furious heat coming up from his gut and it didn’t help that. Ricardo turned to face him finally, glaring him down from the next seat.

“That was a different situation and you know it,”

“No. I don’t know that. I still don’t know how the hell you found me there that day and all of the possibilities scare me to death,” don’t look at his face. Don’t look at.

Ah, beans. Too late to stop, even with Ortega’s glare shifting into something that looked too close to being hurt. A bitter and quiet thought started kicking around between Richard’s temples. Doing it again. Trying to do it again.

“Or why you kept pushing. I have no idea why you kept going out of your way to keep close to me when I kept trying to force you away. At first I thought it was guilt. Your guilt. And honestly I still don’t know for certain because I can’t see inside your head,” Richard felt his head creakily turning back to look at Mitzi. “All I do know is that ever since you found me, all I’ve done is hurt you. Showed you that I lied and didn’t trust you for years and threw everything good you tried to do for me back in your face,”

A drop of tension. The flare of anger shifting back and cooling its heels at the base of Richard’s spine. He didn’t want this to be a fight. Ricardo’s body language—don’t look at his face that’s how he gets you—wasn’t aggressive. Just tired. Exhausted.

“Why don’t you ask me?”

Something misfired. “What?” Richard’s head snapped to attention, finally letting himself take in Ricardo’s expression. Mouth hard set and almost grim but. Soft. Softer around the eyes.

“Why don’t you ask? You said you can’t see inside my head to know for sure. Ask me,” a challenge if ever one was issued.

Richard did his best impression of a freshly caught fish and gaped, silent and wide eyed, at him for a moment before his brain restarted itself. “Because I want to _trust_ you, without forcing you to—,”

“Then trust that I’m going to give you an honest answer,” Ricardo said. Steady and firm. Reeds of. Pleading with Richard. “That’s how the rest of us do it,” It tore at him. Where to even begin with something like that? He picked at random before the gathering throngs of doubts could threaten to overwhelm him.

“Did you. Was it,” Panic. Creeping in and twisting itself in thick ropes around his no. No. He could. He could handle this. Was he crying? Didn’t matter. Deep breath. “Did you go to that diner to find me?”

“I did,” tightening. Shifting. Slight movements that Richard willed himself into ignoring, looking away. Into focusing on the hollow shell of a woman lying in bed. They’d trimmed her nails recently and.

“Did you know I was alive before you saw me in that diner?” Pressure on his chest; a great ugly nameless weight. Of course he knew. Why else would he go to the diner to find him, of course he knew. What a stupid question but the one he needed to ask kept looping itself back into his head. A mental ouroboros of panicked realization.

A deep sigh, out through the nose. One that made his shoulders fall a little with the exhale and. “…Yeah, yeah I…I was pretty sure,”

“How long did you know?” Pressure on the windpipe. Enough to make it a whisper. Good news, because he could no longer focus on keeping up the aura blasting the nursing staff away from Mitzi’s room.

“Richard I didn’t,” not guilt and not upset just so bone weary that it was showing in his voice and he never let it show before. Could never let how much it was. Creaking in the throat. “It’s not like–,”

“How long did you know I was alive,” choked. “Before you decided that you needed me for something?” Richard stared at the ground and felt something tilt. “If the whole Argent thing had never happened would you have ever,” couldn’t finish it. He’d known. He’d known and things that Richard didn’t want to slip into place were nevertheless slotting together and.

And who the hell could have ever blamed Ricardo for not wanting him back in his life?

Not wanting to. _I don’t even want me in my life so why should_. Still no answer. It stung to swing his gaze up from the floor. Ricardo’s face was pinched tight. Every second he held his gaze felt like another notch tighter around his throat. Started to hurt to breathe normally. Or maybe that was from him holding whatever was building in his lungs down. “How long?” raw in his throat and. Certainly crying now. The resigned sort—no great heaving sobs, just thin slips of wet warmth on his cheeks and sandpaper in his lungs.

A hard twist of the mouth, as though the words were bitter on his tongue. “I’d heard rumors. A few years after they claimed you’d died, they. Jesus, I. Richard you were my best friend and I buried you, I mourned you, I,”

“You tried to move on,” not even enough strength in it to be an accusation. It would have been. Would it have been better if he had? It. If he’d been able to leave Richard behind and not. Not enough of Richard was convinced that it would have been better for them both if Ricardo had moved on. The brief tide ebbed back and Richard wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeves and took in a deep breath. There was plenty of time to blubber like an idiot later, when he wasn’t trying to believe that was Ricardo was going to tell him was the truth.

Have a little faith. Show a little. Cry later. Trust him now, even if what he says is.

“I couldn’t,” Ricardo’s own tone made up for the weakness in Richard’s. A solid wall to the feather down. “At first it hurt too much to even consider but I wanted it to be true. I wanted it to be true so badly I hunted down each and every person who said anything about anyone who looked or sounded or seemed like,” Ricardo shook his head, dragging a hand through his own hair. “And finally about two months before I really found you, I got someone who had seen you,”

Something shifted.

A hairline fracture in whatever mask was currently. A little edge that sounded too familiar and Richard felt his stomach lurch. Painful desperation sidling in and threatening to step on toes. “They gave me a description that wasn’t vague or half drunk or clearly a trap and I went to where they said they’d seen you hanging around and there you were,” wispy disbelief rose into the air. As if Ricardo still had to make himself believe it, the look of aching wonder still strong in his eyes. “You were just standing there in some fucking store, I don’t even remember what the hell you were looking at, but you were right there,” he made a motion, reaching out and before Richard could react, Ricardo’s hand was on his thigh just above his knee.

Without thinking Richard put his hand over it. A quiet. Something. Reassurance? That he was really there. “And you looked like a ghost,” a back of the throat noise, hard and catching. “I turned around and walked out and spent the next few days trying to convince myself that I had really seen you. And by the time I decided to look for you again, I was thinking about why you had never come looking for me. Why, if you were alive all this time, did you never come back to me?” Ricardo’s face folded and Richard realized with a sick jolt that he was steeling himself. Holding back something because they were in public or they were together or. “Mierda, I didn’t know what to…so I watched you. I watched you being cagey and never talk or smile or so much as nod to anyone. Leave your shitty apartment looking like death and reeking of whiskey, too tired and too thin and with too many bruises and it killed me because I knew you knew how to contact me. If you had ever wanted to see me again. If you wanted my help,” he paused. Richard squeezed the back of his hand in time with the clenching sensation in his chest. “And you clearly didn’t,”

“I’m sorry,” not even sure if it was. No, he meant it. Part of him hadn’t wanted Ricardo to be involved in any of this. But Richard could remember the knee jerk reactions. The back of the neck, adrenaline filled ‘I wish Ortega were here’. It had never been allowed to grow beyond that, forced to whither on the vine. Tried to force it to whither. Pushed into a dark space in his mind and left to dry out. Apparently the roots of that need were deeper dug than he’d imagined.

It was still a little too hard to think that he could deserve help from anyone. Be allowed to ask for help and take it. To believe that. Ricardo shook it off. The apology. Not. His hand stayed where it was, pinned between Richard’s palm and his leg. A terrible spot of heat that Richard couldn’t have moved from himself if he tried.

“It doesn’t matter,” which was clearly bullshit. “And then I noticed her leaving your apartment building whenever you went in. Like clockwork. And that was when it all hit the fan, you know? I followed you, uh, her,” he gave Mitzi a polite nod. Awkward nod.

Richard felt a tingle up his spine; it slipped in around the connective nerves and wrenched hard, making the organs in his torso do interesting and exciting acrobatics. Ricardo was smart, and surely glossing over more time and effort than he’d ever admit to, but even then. It had been so easy? Just a few months for one man and his personal paranoia network? No wonder the Farm had such a pathetically easy time tracking him down the Ricardo was still talking.

“Watched her go to Joes, asked my people and they said she was working for a new villain and poking around. Getting information. Nobody knew who her boss was and I was convinced that whoever she was working for was doing something to you. Manipulating you or blackmailing or. Fuck. _Something_. And then Angie got attacked by,” he cleared his throat and Richard shifted into what he hoped looked like a suitably guilty expression. Argent had had plenty of opportunities to kick Mad Dog’s ass in revenge, and she’d taken full advantage of them. And even if he didn’t feel proud of it (not entirely true, there was the pride of craftsman snickering somewhere in his head) it wasn’t as if he had overstayed his welcome.

“Well. You. But back then that just a nameless attack. A psychic. And I thought that maybe there was a connection there, just not one I could figure out because why would you ever attack a Ranger? And then Psychopathor got hit—a clear set up—and somebody takes his,” Ricardo gestured blankly at the air beside his own skull. The Rat King. “His targeting system? It was too close together. Something big was coming. So I decided that I had to reach out to you. I thought, if I was wrong about everything then at least I could offer to be there for you and maybe convince you to help Angie. And you told me. You said that you were afraid to get back in the game because there were people after you. Almost confirmed what I was trying to piece together, with pieces from a different puzzle,”

“Same shapes,” Richard heard his own voice without feeling his lips moving.

“Different picture,” Ricardo nodded, apparently more to himself than Richard. And then seemed to round back to an earlier conclusion. “And I guess I panicked a little. I had been sure that I could leave it up to you, that if you wanted me back you would have come for me. But then all of the sudden I had you in my hands and I couldn’t let you go. So. A month of really knowing that it was you. And if the Argent thing hadn’t happened I…I don’t know. Maybe I would have told myself that I was respecting your choices and left you alone,” another tiny. Ricardo cleared his throat, overly loud after the whispered words.

Richard’s body moved before he realized it, twisting slightly in the chair, grumbling from his rib and a twinge in his hip that would make it hard to walk later and. The angle was awkward. Didn’t matter. It was enough to tug Ricardo into a one armed hug. A brief moment of confused tension in the body and then an equally odd return embrace.

“Thank you,” the tightness in his chest swelled and then released. Voice wavering high and uneven. “For coming after me,” squeezed a little for emphasis before reclining. Trying to recline back. Ricardo’s hold didn’t loosen at quite the same pace and Richard found himself shifting more into it. Something inside him threatened to snap and instead vibrated north of his lungs. “Thanks for staying after all I keep putting you through,” brought his other arm around so it was still an uncomfortable angle but at least it was an actual hug.

And then Ricardo’s other arms came around and he went, “It wasn’t be better without you,” with a twist in his voice. “I missed you so much,”

“I missed you too,” Richard managed and ah. Beans. Yeah, he was almost crying again. Forced with back with a swallow. It had been something keener than just a knife blade of nostalgia. “I was,” a stronger, more recent memory. “Do you remember that day you walked me back from Finch’s office, before I told you…anything?” he didn’t wait for confirmation but he felt Ricardo nod slightly. “I had convinced myself that it was the last time I’d ever be able to call you my friend. That I was going to lose you,”

“Scary thought, huh?” Ricardo poked and Richard felt the arms around his shoulders relax slightly. “Losing your friend forever,” 

“Yeah,” and they both edged back, just a fraction, into their own seats. A space between that wasn’t the same as before. “So,” Richard cleared his throat as Ricardo suddenly began adjusting his jacket and what counted as normalcy descended. “One more question,”

“Yeah,” Ricardo shrugged his shoulders as though he were loosening up after a fight. “Okay, shoot,”

“You and Chen are together,” not really an afterthought, even if it hadn’t been what he had wanted to talk about originally. 

A very long, very silent pause. Ricardo’s face shifting through what seemed to be every stage of grief before settling. And then. “That’s not a question,”

Richard’s stomach squirmed beneath his ribcage. Was he? Ugh. “Were you afraid of what I would say?” because he could. Didn’t want to, but he could understand that. The ice they were walking through that territory crackled with every new footstep forward. No way to know what was underfoot without breaking all the way through.

“Never felt like the right time,” Ricardo said and then almost immediately winced. The explanation clearly fell short, even for himself.

“I’m not,” Richard paused and let a few of his options gather up for inspection. “It’s fine that you didn’t tell me sooner than he managed to. I just was a little hurt that it came from Chen instead of you,” Ricardo’s mouth twisted again and Richard pressed on. “But you’re happy with him, right? I mean. He’s,” he’s in love with you, but that wasn’t his place to say. He had no way of knowing if Chen had admitted anything like that to Ricardo and Richard wasn’t about to go digging to find out. Ricardo didn’t rush to fill in the blank, letting it hang in the air to see where Richard would drop the other boot. He nodded though, a subtle movement. “He’s a good man,” and then sensing the mood slipping. “His dog’s pretty nice too,”

A brief moment of rapid fire blinking and then a slow grin took over Ricardo’s face. Things slipping back in to their regular spots, if only for the familiar comfort they provided. Protective covers sliding back over exposed nerves. “Yeah, I heard about that,” he lifted his eyebrows. “Danny really convinced you to get a dog?”

“The dog convinced me to get the dog—Danny cheated,” which earned a soft snort from Ricardo, but the atmosphere was still a little too. Tension still too high without anywhere for it to dissipate to. He was looking back up at Mitzi.

“How uh. How long are you gonna,” left it equally empty. Richard waited. “Keep…you know,”

Richard shrugged. “As long as I can,” and on that uplifting note, looking at the vase of flowers and the sharply clicking heart monitor flanking Mitzi’s body, Richard felt a fresh wave of revulsion with himself break. “You wanna go grab a beer?” ashy and wrong in his mouth.

“God, yeah, I thought you’d never ask,”


End file.
